I feel like everyone's jumping over the worked stone.
We're assuming a technological civilization here, but without accidental geoengineering or even surviving artifacts. Flaked flint and pottery get everywhere.
It just doesn't seem likely to me. The arguments seem very "God of the gaps" in nature.
>The arguments seem very "God of the gaps" in nature.
It is an argument from ignorance, but the timescales of pottery (1-20k ya) dwarf the porcelain thrones and nitrous oxide disposables that will be the only remaining artifact of our existence in 10 million years.
Which is still a brief moment in time, compared to the timescales of the epoch proceeding.
99.9999% of animals are extinct.
We had almost nothing, but a lot of it was inferrable.